Monday, April 23, 2007

My less-than-pleasant petrol station experience

This weekend I went down to Bolton for a weekend with my chamber choir, Sine Nomine. It was a fair drive and along the way I stopped at a petrol station to go for a wee and buy sweeties.

Just ahead of me in entering the shop was a big fat greasy looking lorry driver, who headed straight for the only toilet.

I loitered by the ginsters pie display while waiting for the greasy man to complete his ablutions. As the minutes ticked by my ‘fear of dirty public toilets’ anxiety grew and grew. Had my bladder not been screaming for relief I would have dived back in the car and avoided the horror that was waiting for me.

The lorry driver emerged looking pleased with himself and I gingerly entered the toilet. Before committing fully, I took an enormous lungful of air in the hope I would be able to wee before having to smell the airborne particles of poo lingering from the previous occupant.

My suspicions were confirmed. The pan was smeared with a generous smatter of faeces of the type that only the bowels of an unhealthy fat bloke with a hangover could produce. I hovered over the pan, thighs burning with oxygen starvation, eyes shut in revulsion, bladder purging with as much speed as it could muster.

Upon opening my eyes to retrieve some paper, I realised the small wash hand basin that was directly under my nose was full of vomit, the plughole blocked with large pieces of very recognisable onion and red pepper. I decided that I would not wash my hands, sure in the knowledge that the germs gained from my own effluent would be vastly preferable to the germs lurking on the vomit covered tap and basin I would have to touch in order to wash.

Upon leaving the hell of the toilet I approached the girl at the till. ‘erm…I just wanted to make you aware that someone has been sick in the sink in the there’ I ventured, pointing to the toilet.

‘oh yes, I know’ said the girl, breezily. ‘That was me. I haven’t had time to clean it up yet’

I ran way without buying sweeties. I have been permanently scarred by this experience.